Call-centre industry boost

5000 new jobs is takeover goal

INDIAN company the Essar Group yesterday announced that it would pump R500-million over the next three years into developing South Africa’s call- centre industry.

Essar subsidiary Aegis announced it had acquired the South African company CCN Group in a deal that would result in the creation of at least 5000 jobs.

CCN is one of the largest privately owned contact-centre companies in the country.

The global chief marketing officer and head of sales of Aegis, Sandip Sen, said the company hoped to enhance South Africa’s capacity, which was at present too small to handle the demands of large customers.

“We are a global company. In India alone, we are growing at a rapid scale, recruiting 1000 new people each year,” said Sen.

He said Aegis — which already has over 100 Fortune 500 customers, including AT&T and American Express — would be able to attract business from large BPO (business process outsourcing) markets such as the UK, US and India.

Aegis, originally a US-based company, has 32 centres in the US , Philippines, India, Costa Rica and Kenya and employs more than 33000 people.

CCN is Aegis’ 12th acquisition and has a workforce of 1000.

“We want to grow organically through expansion and training to create an additional 5000 new call-centre jobs,” said Sen.

Essar has interests in the energy, steel and telecommunications sectors, generating 18-billion in turnover a year.

The company is also looking at investing further in various sectors across Africa.

It has developed an oil refinery in Kenya, a port in Mombasa and coal mines in Mozambique.

In India, the company’s telecommunications arm is co- owned with UK-based Vodafone in a 76-million-subscriber Essar- Vodafone joint venture.

“South Africa is Africa’s biggest economy and a huge market for BPO. We want to eventually establish call centres in Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth,” said Sen.

Call centre discussion

Business Times